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Gov. Scott Walker announced Friday that he has set up a legal- defense fund to help pay expenses incurred as a result of the John Doe investigation of activities during his time as county executive.

Walker’s campaign released a statement from the first-term Republican saying he would use the defense fund – called The Scott Walker Trust – to pay his two criminal defense lawyers “to review documents and assist me in cooperating” with the secret probe. He can transfer unlimited funds from his campaign to the defense fund as long as he has the contributors’ consent.

Several election lawyers said creation of the defense fund serves as a tacit acknowledgment that Walker is under investigation for election law violations.

“If you create a legal-defense fund, you are either being investigated, being charged with or have been convicted of a criminal violation of Chapter 11 or Chapter 12,” said retired state election lawyer George Dunst, referring to the statutes dealing with campaign finance and election fraud.

But Walker spokeswoman Ciara Matthews disputed that notion late Friday, saying the fund was set up “under the guidance of the GAB.”

“We reiterate that Gov. Walker has been told that he is not a target of this investigation,” Matthews said.

Her statement did not make clear who exactly informed the governor that he is in the clear.

Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf, who is overseeing the John Doe investigation, declined to comment on Matthews’ statement. He said he was unaware that Walker had set up the defense fund.

“For nearly two years, Milwaukee County officials have been examining issues related to former employees of the County,” Walker said in the statement. “I have repeatedly pledged my cooperation with that inquiry. I also made it clear that no public money has been used, or will be used, to pay for the attorneys needed to review documents and assist me in cooperating.

“To fulfill my commitment, I have today formed a legal fund to pay for the expenses incurred in cooperating with the inquiry. The fund will operate in accordance with the Wisconsin law authorizing these accounts, which was passed almost thirty years ago.”

The fund is registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a political organization.

State election law makes clear that a candidate can set up a defense fund in limited circumstances.

“Wisconsin Statutes permit a state government official who is being investigated for or charged with a violation of campaign finance laws or prohibited election practices to establish a ‘legal defense fund’ for expenditures supporting or defending the candidate while that person is being investigated for, or charged with, or convicted of a violation of those chapters,” says a summary of the statute posted on the Government Accountability Board website.

Nearly a decade ago, several state lawmakers – including former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, a Republican, and ex-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala, a Democrat – set up defense funds to help pay for their lawyers after they were charged criminally during the legislative caucus scandal.

“We don’t know what status he’s at,” Kennedy said, regarding the criminal probe. “I think that might be a question ultimately down the road that you would look at.”

Kennedy said he couldn’t say what advice his agency had given Walker’s lawyers.

Michael Maistelman, an election lawyer who is representing former Walker aide Tim Russell in the John Doe investigation, said people could draw conclusions from Walker’s decision to create a defense fund.

“The only way you can set that up is if you are under investigation or being prosecuted,” Maistelman said. “One can only draw the conclusion that either one of those two things is happening.”

I think Glenn Greenwald makes very valid points here: Dennis Kucinich and “wackiness”; ….. though I’ve had absolutely no ‘faith’ in Dennis ever since I realized his wife looks and sounds like an Abrahamic ™ concubine trophy, not to mention the creepy Orwellian concept of a Department of Peace:™. …. Yeah .once a government starts creating and titling: exclusive, members only, groups, ….titled/MARKETED . after what they know are the innate concerns for the majority of those governed, …that government is heading towards enslavement of the voiceless governed.

Kucinich was just a much, much lesser harm to my mind, but still a harm – a filled with himself, and his maleness ™, dupe, in what appears to be a not so grand plan and direction …to say the least.

IMO he was just one more Democrat. He always gave them cover, created diversion or colluded.

Maybe maybe maybe years ago, he did a few things in Cleveland, but it was long ago. Oh, and!!!, just one more Catholic. The wife spouted New Age mumbo jumbo at a speed rate. Growing up in Cali I have heard it all, in that department. Snooze.

“We’re baaaack,” shouted Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, to kick off what was likely the largest labor demonstration since last spring, as tens of thousands converged on the Capitol Square Saturday to commemorate the year-long fight against Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-union agenda, as well as to show support for the recall effort against him, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four Republican state senators.

Organizers claimed the turnout was as high as 65,000, although official estimates from the Department of Administration are not yet available.

It was a scene reminiscent of the rallies that dominated Madison a year ago, with thousands of protesters clad in union apparel milling about the Square and spilling onto State State and into area eateries. Ian’s Pizza, which last year offered free slices to protesters for days after it was flooded with donations from around the world, was once again jam-packed with hungry demonstrators.

Neuenfeldt was followed by a lineup of other speakers from union leadership, including Mary Kay Henry, president of Service Employees International Union, and Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Wisconsin Association of Professional Firefighters.

State Sen. Jen Shilling, D-La Crosse, who unseated Republican Sen. Dan Kapanke in the first round of recall elections last August, said her victory was only the beginning of an effort to oust Republicans.

“We are not done yet,” she said. “Thanks to you we will continue to hold our elected officials accountable.”

Perhaps the most powerful symbol of that continued effort was Lori Compas, a Fort Atkinson free-lance writer and mother who organized a recall drive against Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, the GOP Senate majority leader. Although Fitzgerald’s district leans strongly Republican and political professionals did not initially plan to try to unseat the incumbent, who has been in office since 1995, Compas’ grass-roots effort was successful and she recently announced her candidacy for the seat.

“Last night I saw a pair of sandhill cranes flying low above the cornfields outside our town,” she began. “Every year their return reminds us that even after the most difficult winters, new life is stirring and new beginning are under way. And all of us have to come together today … not so much to mourn what happened but to celebrate what happened next. Change is in the air, I can feel it, can you?”

Afterward, in an interview, Compas acknowledged that she was the underdog in the race, and says she is not sure whether the campaign will have enough money to run ads on TV. Nevertheless, she also says her inexperience in politics is not an insurmountable barrier, and points out that Fitzgerald had never run for office before when he won the seat 17 years ago.

When Compas first filed papers to recall Fitzgerald, not even her own husband was aware, but since then, she says, support in the community has come from unexpected quarters, including from conservatives.

“We had a tea party member carry petitions for us,” she said. “[The tea party member] said ‘I support the Constitution, and every time Scott Fitzgerald opens his mouth he spits on the Constitution.'”

People up here, even though they support a lot of really horrible winger media, like to maintain the illusion that WI is more “civil” and “decent” than everyone else, and they LOVE procedural stuff that “proves” it (this is the state that gave the country Feingold and Proxmire, after all). Walker and the Republican legislature threw over all pretense of “civility over the last year. I think it was too much for a lot of people.

of course, I’m sure a lot of that has to do with California being the eighth largest economy in the world, despite/due to? …. the stunning levels of austerity, incarceration and brutality, …. going on within its boundaries. ….

who knows, could be 5th Empire still, and it’s being downplayed in “sympathy” and “sensitivity” with it having the 2nd highest unemployed rate and the fact that STATE Colleges/Universities now cost as much, and then some, as the Historic Ivy Leaguers.

While I’ll be thrilled to see this shit go away after decades of it being pretty much unchallenged, I can’t help but suspect that the corporate Powers-that-be have decided to keep Barack O’Nixon around for four more and they’re removing a possible source of trouble.

ugh how naive IS Charles Pierce? The way Breitbart doctored the vid was way too hot for Punahoe school boy Slob to deal with. They closed ranks at the WH immediately. Went out on a limb for old friend Henry Louis Gates, but did not bother to make a few calls for SS….

I cannot go find it at the moment, but considering what …think it was a member of another Cvil Rights family, Innis, posted at Cpunch, I cannot weep for Sherrod. Waste of my time…. Then after years of accepting on its face, of course why whould I not?, the suit from the black farmers against some arm of the Dept of Ag… shoot, I went shuffling online thru the Pigford case, an exercise in rooting thru a mess.

An American service member is detained after walking off a checkpoint in the Kandahar province and opening fire on civilians in two villages, according to officials. At least five were wounded.

And only days after Barry Love Peace Prize was whippin up the butter fried fretful in deep fried lies, happily consumed, about how he is happy to report~ah that American Troops are no longer serving … {whatever Slobrama’s weasel word descripto } ..in IRAQ.

WAR CRIMINAL. War Criminal in Chief now may I remind all retrenching Death Squad Dems out there. By all means, bring all argument, apologia, evidence to the contrary on the way to the morgues

More killed under his regime’s single term than two terms of Bush and Cheney combined.
Barry Love Peace Prize,
Love Him, LOVE ..HIM, chillin and killin and with
LOVE like Kim-jong-Illin. Oh he Loves you back.
Oh you know, Remember to vote Democrat.
You know, on principle, all perceptive cerebral sorts –
Remember to vote Democrat…
.. after burying the record and erasing the tape….

WAR CRIMINAL….. War Criminal in Chief AGAIN may I remind all retrenching Death Squad Dems out there.

With the exception of Tapper (who tried to introduce the factual errors in the Kony 2012 vid, but was cut off by Stephie) the various R and D consultants and pundits all sounded weak this morning on TW.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — An American soldier was arrested in southern Afghanistan after walking off his base and opening fire on civilians early Sunday, killing 16, in an attack described by Afghan president Hamid Karzai as “unforgivable.”

Well ornament he is, Karzai has his moments, prolly moments to live as the country explodes, but, ya know..

“When Afghan people are killed deliberately by US forces this action is murder and terror and an unforgivable action,” Karzai said in statement. “The government and the people of Afghanistan demand an explanation from the United States government of this incident.”

Among the victims of the attack were nine children, killed when the shooter went from house to house at 3:00am local time.

Eleven of the victims were killed in one home, four were killed in a second home and one other person was killed in a third home, Sky News reported, citing unnamed sources. Five people were wounded in two other houses.

The shooter was a Staff Sergeant, the report said, without providing further details.

A joint Afghan-coalition investigation is underway into the shooting, and it remains unclear what the shooter’s motives were or whether he had previous contact with his victims.

US Air Force Captain Justin Brockhoff, a coalition spokesman in Kabul, said numerous civilian casualties were being treated in coalition military facilities.

I think Karzai just wants to avoid assassination, by Afghanis OR US mil…. I read long ago he has no private, as in his own, security, he relies on the US contractors for his personal security. Must be really reassuring to be protected by some arm of Eric Prince. Or whomever…

And, politically now anyways, Barry The War Effort President is going to need a few bouquets of his own.
Flashpoint incident. like you said: bound to happen.

IMO I don’t think there is anything inthe last ten years that will match the kind of blowback to come with this.
But you know.~~.Barry, the Progressive.,
This is the point I believe where ‘Mrka gets run the fuck out.

Earlier this week Occupy L.A., foreclosure advocates, family members, and local community, gathered at the Southern California home of Blanca Cardenas to protest her recent eviction and deportation. Police responded in full riot gear, but in the end, there were no arrests made.

Protesters broke into the Cardenas home Tuesday evening demanding that Blanca Cardenas be returned to her family. She was arrested last week when she refused to leave her home. She and her husband had recently won ownership of their home from Bank of America. However, during the legal proceedings, the bank had sold the home to an investor. The investor declared a citizens arrest on Cardenas and LAPD took her into custody.

Police discovered Cardenas did not have proper immigration papers and turned her over to ICE. She is currently staying with relatives in Mexico. The judge ordered that she not return to the states for 20 years.

Even tho I think we are in a completely screwed up place on immigration, legal, illegal and work visas… The whole thing is a fucked mess… THIS, this arrests, deportations, breaking up of long term resident (illegal members among legal and born here) of families and the huge sweeps is absolutely horrific.

Few in U.S. sense Afghan support for war, according to Post-ABC News poll

Most Americans sense a lack of broad Afghan support for U.S. efforts in that country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Some 54 percent of Americans want to withdraw U.S troops even if the Afghan army is not adequately trained to carry on the fight. . . . .

It’ll be ‘interesting to read the evolving nooz …heard a ghastly blurb on KGO earlier about how the Afghanis were informed by rumor versus truths , yup, already prepping to downplay the facts coming out of the mouths of those who were born and live there.

The UZ certainly wouldn’t want any more evidence of the fact that the $UZ$ Domiciled MIC has perfected an industry that turns its own[ed] country’s, unconnected and thoroughly neglected, citizens into psychopathic murderers, through systemic, class based, white gloved: psychological abuse and economic deprivation.

At the rate we medicate and I would guess test medications on soldiers n the field in the war zones, I think we have no fucking clue what is going on over there….

Mad Max war, I would think…. like all wars.

Plus I read years ago, after strange stories in the US press that Iraqis were consuming amounts of Arak to dull their senses during the early bombing raids, later I read that much of what is available here only by script is easily obtained there… (as in more than a few countries).

I am not excusing anything or anyone, the crimes are horrific. But I’d like to live long enough to get the truth of what is really happening in theatre.

France used an attack on their forces to frame their early (if it was) withdrawal and iirc the UK did the same soon after…

From day one though I have felt this very subtle push to deny any long term mental/emotional problems that any of them would have. And I will never forget what an a$$hole that psychologist was to me when my family really needed someone to hear what was happening and give us a little help.

The country has had issues with mental health care forever. it’s only gotten worse.

I’ve been watching the Berkeley hills murder case, as it is, to the extent it is reported in any detail, interesting both on mental health care available and not to the poorest of the poor even, but to the grandchild of a former Berkeley mayor with two living and involved parents… Dewitt is the killer, think the dx was the usual (no idea if accurate) paranoid schizo/bi polar… AND with the middle of the night heavy handed visit to a Berkeley blogger by the cops.

Except for the beating death of an old man, Cukor, a long time resident in the Berkeley hills and the mess that the Dewitt family finds itself in… it would be almsot a comedy routine. With the Keystone cops. IN the supposed land of free speech using intimidation tactics on a blogger….

The country has had issues with mental health care forever. it’s only gotten worse.

Yup, and I personally think that $NAMI$ ™ is an enormous part of the problem. It’s absolute insanity to believe that horrid experiences, including a lack of vital nutrition and rest from STRESS and FEAR (no I’m not referring to Micky O.’s My Plate! Plan™ ), have nothing to do with people cracking; … from what I’ve read, that appears to be their over $Medicating$ Philosophy.

IMO stress is the single biggest killer. Right along with a wide swath of illnesses that can be (or, could be) tracked to environmentl issues. IMO cars would rate as high as if not higher than cigarettes.

I just don’t and nver have bought into most of the bullshit. Esp the minute bullshite becomes RELIGION. When that happens, I am off the wagon train.

Civil society groups, academics and trade unions have also expressed concerns about the US proposal that corporations be empowered to sue governments over broad social, economic and environmental policies.

“A number of the demands made by US multinational corporations [MNCs] in submissions on the TPPA have become official US government positions in the negotiations.. For the US, it seems a zero-sum game between their MNCs and the rest of the world – either they win large, or nobody wins at all,” Sanya Reid Smith, legal advisor and senior researcher at Third World Network, told IPS.
..

Doctors Without Borders (or Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) has also expressed profound concern over the impact this agreement would have upon their health programmes.

Over 80% of all medicines used by MSF are generic and MSF has warned that losing access to this source of medicine will result in literally millions of deaths.

As Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, a prominent US consumer organization, told IPS, “The reason these negotiations are so extremely secret and there is such a rush to get it [done] quickly is that the content is so extremely biased towards increasing corporate power at the expense of most of us.

“There are so many outrageous specific proposals that if people knew the details then the whole process would get derailed by widespread outrage.”

On the question of Grand-Slam’s larger impact, Glenn seems to be of the opinion that he is a molar, ingrown, subtly undermining the rest of those mean chompers:

For one, enacting legislation is not the only way to have an important impact on our political culture. Shining light on otherwise-ignored issues, advocating rarely-heard political positions, using one’s platform to highlight the corruption of those in power and to challenge their warped belief systems are all vitally important functions. Advocacy of that sort may not produce immediate, tangible successes, but it is a prerequisite for changing prevailing political mores and persuading citizens to think differently.

I have a hypothesis that the word citizen is, for many minds, a safety word; what was whipping along at a fine pace comes to a swift and sudden halt, lest it do any actual damage. Is this what Dennis Kucinich was doing? See, here, well, um, I have long been under the impression that what Dennis Kucinich was doing was providing a reliably quote-unquote liberal outlier, a lonely tentpole on the far, far side of the bombing range where the Democratic party pitches its big tent, around which the sort of folks who overpay for yoga instruction and carry their own bags to the grocery store could crowd, having convinced themselves that its slender shadow is the shade. A few paces to its left is a single, well-occupied dining room chair, upon which rest all of Ron Paul’s supporters; it’s their seat at the table, get it? Look, people within institutions serve institutional functions, whether the like it or not, whether they know it or not. Does Dennis Kucinich help you to continue to believe that you are an, oh, god, citizen? That by speaking out you are “changing prevailing political mores”? Maybe all isn’t lost . . . maybe . . . maybe I ought to continue to participate . . . it may not produce any immediate, tangible successes, but, given time . . . attitudes change . . . people change . . .

And this is how you end up reliably offering your consent to one or other gang of murdering psychopaths. So who’s crazy, here, the murdering psychopaths, or the fella who keeps handing them the keys to the gun cabinet? The old saw about the real definition of insanity is the truth: it consists of the endless repetition of the same action with the expectation of a different result. If the Democratic party can contain a Kucinich, it must be less evil than the evil rethuglican menace, right? If the Republicans have a Ron Paul, they must be at least somewhat, marginally more committed to some kind of reasonable limits on the reach and scope of the federal government, right? No, wrong, wrong! If a fucking candy bar contains real coconut, that does not make it a fruit; if you fruits drink enough Miller Ultra Lite, you will still get fat.

(and speaking of good health, are you okay honey? … you’ve been kind of quiet.)

well Glenn is often quite useful… but iirc he used to be a R, has lied on his CV about his work history as an atty (claimed or implied an associate spot at a firm where he was a summer intern) and he lives outside the US. I am not aware that he regularly goes back and forth. I’ve had the impression its rare. And I just remembered he had somewhat icky sweetheart deals for his first two books…

hmmm I was looking around the Safeway online site starting to pull together a delivery for next week….

and BUTTER shot up right in front of me. Over a dollar rise, for 16 oz.

I had heard, or read, but it certainly was not widely reported, that the US had an immense slaughter of dairy cows, last year or maybe it was late in 2010, in order to raise the price of milk products.

Isn’t it just stunning …. all of the basics skyrocketing with no concurrent logical, or humane, reason; …. pink goo, lean ground beeph at $5 a pound (on sale!)……. they really do want a vast majority to just go somewhere and die ….

…. the Alliance Norfolk [Virginia (Naval Base)]. There are 23 crew members and five passengers on board.
….
The 57,000-ton, 200-meter (yard) vessel was en route from the United States to Saudi Arabia with a consignment of cars and had moored for an inspection just off Piraeus, the port of Athens.

So.

At Thursday's debate, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren defended their Medicare for All plan. They faced criticism from several rivals, including Senator Amy Klobuchar, who described it as a "bad idea," and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who claimed the bill shows Sanders and Warren do not "trust the American people."

At the third presidential primary debate in Houston, Texas, senator and 2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Warren also spoke about her stance on U.S. trade policy and how "our trade policy in America has been broken for decades."

After being questioned about the crisis in Venezuela, Senator Bernie Sanders defended his vision of democratic socialism. "I agree with what goes on in Canada and in Scandinavia: guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. I believe that the United States should not be the only major country on Earth not to provide paid family and medical le […]

Debate moderator Jorge Ramos of Univision grilled former Vice President Joe Biden over the Obama administration's deportation record. Biden refused to answer whether he did anything to prevent Obama from deporting a record 3 million people.

A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Friday demanded internal emails, detailed financial information and other company records from top executives of Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc, Apple Inc, and Alphabet Inc's Google, widening the antitrust probe of Big Tech.

U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Friday asked a government watchdog to look into the Trump administration's decision to launch an antitrust probe into four automakers cooperating with California on tighter greenhouse gas emissions limits that Trump is trying to eliminate.

A lawyer for former FBI official Andrew McCabe pressed U.S. prosecutors on Friday to drop their politically sensitive case against him, citing reports that suggest they may be having trouble securing criminal charges.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.